Mysteries Solved
by GinervaMarieChaseEverdeen
Summary: Felicity and her best friend Alena are the only members of Helix, their high school's unofficial hacktivism club. Their current project is to discover the identity of the Arrow, a mysterious vigilante who has appeared in Starling City. On top of this, Felicity has drawn Oliver Queen's name for her class Secret Santa exchange, and she has no idea what to get him. High School AU


**A/N: I wrote this for** **felicityollies** **on tumblr as part of the 2017 Olicity Secret Santa Exchange!**

 **Hi guys, I'm still alive and writing a little. School just keeps me pretty busy so I hardly have time to write much. Hopefully I'll be writing a little more this year. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this hopefully fun high school AU about a mystery, hacktivism, the Arrow, a game of Secret Santa, and the start of Oliver and Felicity's relationship!**

––––––––

"Frack! Of course, _I_ would get stuck with Oliver fracking Queen, Mr. Perfect Billionaire who has everything and anything he could ever want. What in the world am I supposed to get for someone like that?" Felicity ranted to her friend Alena while they sat in her car during lunch.

The two girls first met when Felicity was freshman and Alena was in 8th grade, when Alena's parents moved her family to Starling City. They had hit it off rather quickly, which was unusual for the two girls who were usually loners, but they bonded over their shared love of tech and eventually discovered another mutual interest—hacktivism. And that was the beginning of Helix, their hacktivism club in which they gave themselves projects ranging from breaking through the school's pathetic firewall and into the system to fix an unjust grade—there was absolutely no justification for getting a failing grade in PE just because you couldn't do a perfect pushup— to their current project, finding the identity of the Arrow, a vigilante who had been actively working to take down many of the city's rich and powerful for the last few months. As well as discovering his identity, they were also trying to determine whether he should be stopped or helped. So far, however, they hadn't made a lot of headway.

"I don't know," Alena replied, "but you should at least be glad your AP Bio teacher is letting you have a Holiday party and do Secret Santa on the last day of class since you'll have already taken your AP test. Advanced Physics is just studying for the final which will be oh so much fun," she sighed.

Felicity just laughed. "You take apart a computer and put it back together blindfolded, but physics just might defeat the mighty Alena. On another note, any leads on the Arrow?"

"I think he's working out of the Glades. See?" she turned her laptop to face Felicity, and on the screen, were several videos taken from CCTV showing the Arrow riding his motor cycle down the same few streets in the Glades.

"He's smart. He isn't taking the same route every time, but he's not that smart, because he's just switching between four different routes. Now if we look at these streets on an overhead map, we should be able to triangulate his point of origin."

"I completely agree, but that might have to wait until after school because the lunch bell should be ringing in three, two, one."

A shrill ringing sounded from the school and all the students who had been eating outdoors despite the chilly December weather began to head back inside.

"It's a little eerie how good you are at that," Felicity laughed as she turned off her car and climbed out.

"It's a gift," Alena responded a bit sarcastically. "See you after seventh period?"

"Yep! And then we can get back to work on our project. Mom's working the late shift again tonight, so my house is open."

"Sounds good!"

The two girls separated to go to their respective classes, Felicity heading to AP Biology. The AP test was tomorrow, so she probably should have been paying better attention, but her thoughts kept coming back to Oliver Queen and what she should get him for Secret Santa. Despite the fact that they hardly spoke, Felicity liked to think she knew him pretty well. He was a year ahead of her, and his first three years of high school, Oliver was a notorious party boy, skating by in his classes and dating every pretty girl in school, but mostly Laurel Lance, his on again off again girlfriend since middle school. After his father had died in a boating accident last summer however, something had changed. He stopped partying so much, started actually trying in his classes, was currently off again with Laurel, and maybe for good this time, and apparently got into weight lifting. Because he had gotten really buff, not that Felicity paid much attention or anything.

Oh, who was she kidding. Oliver Queen was really cute and every girl in the school knew it. Not that it mattered what she thought of him. Oliver Queen had a very specific type: tall, blonde, and beautiful. So, a short goth chick with black hair and purple highlights didn't exactly fit the bill.

"Maybe I can get him some workout clothes," Felicity muttered unintentionally to herself, staring at the muscles in Oliver's arms. Her brain to mouth filter was a bit faulty from time to time.

"What was that Miss Smoak?" Mr. Raymond, the teacher, asked and all eyes were immediately on Felicity.

"Nothing," she said softly and began blushing, staring down at her desk.

"I know this material may not be challenging to some of you," Mr. Raymond said looking at her pointedly, "but that does not mean that other students do not need this review session. So please refrain from speaking in class." Then he began to carry on with the review.

When the bell rang at the end of class, Felicity gathered her things and began to walk towards her last class of the day. Before she could make it out of the Biology room however, someone called her name.

"Felicity Smoak?"

She turned around to see that it was Oliver Queen talking to _her_. Well this was an interesting turn of events.

"Yes, that's me," she replied.

"I'm Oliver Queen."

"I knew that. I mean I think everyone in this school or maybe even the whole city knows that. But you were probably just trying to be polite and introduce yourself and I'm babbling like an idiot which will stop in three, two, one. Can I help you with something?"

"Yes actually, I'm having a bit of trouble with my computer, and I hear that you're really good with them. I was wondering if you could maybe take a look at it."

"Uh sure. What seems to be the problem?"

"Can I bring it to you tomorrow? It won't even turn on right now, so I didn't bother bringing it today."

"Any ideas why it won't turn on?"

"Um, I spilled a latte on it," Oliver responded like he wasn't completely sure that was the reason.

"Okay then. I'll look at it and see what I can do. Just bring it to me tomorrow morning. I've got to head to class now. Don't want to be late! Bye Oliver!" she called as she sped out the door and into the hallway.

"Thanks Felicity," Oliver said, grinning a little as she hurried away.

––––––––

That afternoon, Felicity and Alena took up residence in what was formerly the spare bedroom and had, over the years they lived in Starling City, turned into Felicity's office and computer workshop as well as Helix's unofficial base of operations.

"Any luck discovering his base?" Alena asked.

"If my calculations are correct—" Felicity began.

"And they always are!" Alena interrupted her before smiling sheepishly and motioning for Felicity to continue her thought.

"If they're correct, then the Arrow Cave is somewhere on this block," Felicity said as she pointed at a street with practically nothing on it.

"Well that makes no sense," Alena said. "All that's there is the Queen's old steel foundry and that shut down years ago. Why would his base be in an abandoned part of town?"

"I know right! It would make so much more sense to work from a populated area so that he could come and go without attracting so much notice on CCTV as the only person who ever went there."

"Exactly. Also, I've cross referenced the list of all his victims so far, and I think you're right. It's not just the rich and powerful he's after. It's the corrupt rich who abuse their power. With a little more digging, I found lots of dirt on all the victims that could have potentially landed them in jail if the SCPD was actually competent and active in the Glades," Alena told her friend.

"Have you figured out who he'll go after next?"

"Well, I have a list, and it keeps growing. There doesn't seem to be much of a pattern to the order he's going after these guys, so it could be any of these people or even someone we haven't thought of."

"Well I guess our best course of action would be to hack the CCTV near the old Queen steel foundry and see if anything turns up in the next few days. Speaking of the Queens, you'll never guess what happened to me today."

"You figured out what to get Oliver for Secret Santa?"

"Nope. But it does have to do with Oliver. He asked me to fix his computer because he apparently spilled a latte on it."

"Well he came to the best. I'm just surprised his parents won't just buy him a new one. It's not like they can't afford it."

"Well, the whole thing was a bit suspicious. I mean, Oliver Queen has never spoken to me that I can recall, and then he didn't seem super sure about his latte story. He's bringing it tomorrow, so we can take a look at it and see if anything is up."

––––––––

The next morning, Oliver Queen approached Felicity as soon as she got out of her car holding a laptop riddled with what appeared to be bullet holes.

"Uh, that doesn't look like you spilled a latte on it," Felicity blurted out.

"Well, good morning to you too, and my coffee shop is in a bad neighborhood," Oliver replied with a grin and shrug before handing her the laptop.

"So, I'll take a look at it and see what I can do. I'll let you know by the end of the day tomorrow if I've salvaged anything."

"Thank you, Felicity! I really appreciate it!"

"You're welcome, see you later Oliver," Felicity said quickly as she put the laptop into her backpack and dashed inside to find Alena before their first class of the day.

"Alena," Felicity furiously whispered as she found her friend at her locker. "You have to see this!"

"What? Why are you being weird?" Alena asked, very confused.

"Oliver gave me his laptop in the parking lot and you'll never believe what it looks like. Here look," Felicity told her as she shoved her open backpack into Alena's face.

"Uh dang, his coffee shop must be in a bad neighborhood or something…"

"Yeah that's what he said," Felicity muttered, frustrated with all the secrecy. "How in the world did Oliver Queen get a laptop riddled with bullet holes?"

"No idea. I think we need to investigate this at lunch."

"Most definitely. There's definitely some funny business going on here."

"Do you think it has something to do with our secret project?" Alena whispered as the girls headed to first period.

"But why would Oliver Queen be involved with the Arrow?"

"Well he is rich…"

"Yeah but I don't think it's necessarily on par with the previous victims."

"Maybe he has a deep dark secret!" Alena whispered with a chuckle.

"Oh yes," Felicity responded with biting sarcasm as they walked into their classroom, "he's secretly using his wealth to force the citizens of the Glades to do his bidding. Honestly though, this is weird."

––––––––

"Okay," Felicity said as she sat in her car with Alena at lunch that day, "hook me up!"

Alena plugged the cord coming out of Felicity's computer into Oliver's very dead laptop so that Felicity could attempt to extract any surviving data off the hard drive.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" Felicity asked as she looked through the data she was pulling from the destroyed computer. "It seems that Mr. Queen is taking things that don't belong to him. This computer says it belongs to a Mr. Warren Patel."

"And a quick search on him tells us that our dear Mr. Patel is rich and is competing with Oliver's new stepdad to buy Unidac Industries. Oh, and surprise, surprise, he's on my list of potential future Green Arrow victims," Alena informed Felicity.

"Why would Oliver have his laptop? Do you think it's some sort of corporate espionage? I mean, couldn't they have had someone at Queen Consolidated attempt to salvage the laptop if it was? And I still can't figure out how the laptop got shot up in the first place," Felicity babbled.

Alena gasped, putting pieces together as Felicity babbled. "What if…" she trailed off.

"He couldn't be. There's no way!"

"But our footage from last night shows the Arrow definitely going to the old Queen foundry, so that's got to be his base. And Oliver has gotten suspiciously buff this year which matches the Arrow's description. Think about it. And now he's got this laptop. It just adds up," Alena argued.

"I mean, I guess you could be right. Now that I think about it, based on the SCPD's witness descriptions of the Arrow, he seems to have the build of a teenager or someone in their early 20s rather than an older guy. And I'm almost positive I remember something about Oliver taking archery lessons in middle school. And it would make sense that he wouldn't be going to parties anymore if he's out all night as the Arrow…"

"I think we might have finally found him. Hey, what's that?" Alena asked, pointing at Felicity's laptop which was now displaying a blueprint of the exchange building.

"If Oliver really is the Arrow, he must be after someone at Unidac Industries auction. But why would Warren Patel have had blueprints of this building. Unless of course he's planning to try something at the auction this weekend which would make him a valid target for the Arrow."

"Felicity, I think we've got to get this to Oliver. If he really is the Arrow, which despite the evidence, I still think is insane, then he'll need this information."

"Yes, but what if Oliver's not the Arrow? I still think we need to get this info to the right guy…"

"True. But how can we tell for sure. We can't just go up to the guy and ask him point blank without seeming like we've gone nuts."

"And it could be dangerous. What if he doesn't want anyone to know his secret? But Alena, just imagine if he is the Arrow! You would never be able to make fun of me for my tiny crush on Oliver ever again. I mean he would basically have the total package: handsome, mysterious, strong, fighting for justice…" Felicity began to babble again sharing more than she initially intended.

"Felicity, you can stop with the many virtues of the new and improved Oliver Queen. He'll probably get back with Laurel again before you know it. Arrow or not, you should probably move on. You know Cooper has been hinting that he wants to take you to the Christmas dance."

"No way Alena. Coop may be pretty cute and smart, but can you honestly tell me he doesn't seem just a bit devious."

"Felicity, that's a load of crap and you know it," Alena laughed. "But let's get back to the subject. How do we figure out for sure if Oliver's the Arrow without asking him outright?"

"Hey! I've got an idea!"

"What?"

"So, Secret Santa is tomorrow, and I have the perfect idea for a gift for Oliver." Felicity told Alena with a smile.

"Which is…" Alena urged her friend to continue.

––––––––

"Thank you everyone for bringing your Secret Santa gifts. Please come up to my desk to find the package with your name on it. You may then open them and try to determine who your Secret Santa is. After that, we will enjoy some of the wonderful looking snacks you all bought while we watch a Christmas movie. Now let's begin this holiday party," said Mr. Raymond.

Everyone grabbed their gifts, returned to their seat, and opened them, eager to see what they had received. Felicity was too busy watching Oliver open his gift from her to pay attention to the bag with her gift. As soon as he opened the box to see a Nerf bow and arrow, a brief look of worry appeared on Oliver's face before he schooled his expression into a more neutral look.

That look was all the confirmation Felicity needed. Oliver definitely had the look of a guilty man on his face when he saw the bow. He looked worried that someone knew his secret, so Felicity planned to confront him with the laptop after school. Turning her attention to the movie, Felicity forgot about her unopened gift that sat on her desk.

––––––––

At the end of the day, Felicity and Oliver both approached each other in the parking lot.

"Can we talk somewhere more private?" Oliver asked tensely.

"We can sit in my car if you want," Felicity offered.

"Let's go then."

"Okay, this one's mine. It might be a tight fit…"

"I'll manage," was Oliver's only reply.

After the two squeezed into Felicity's tiny car, she pulled out the laptop and handed it to Oliver as well as a flash drive with all the information she extracted from it.

"So, this laptop isn't yours—" she started to say before Oliver interrupted her.

"How did you find out I'm the Arrow? I know you were my Secret Santa Felicity, but how did you figure it out?" he asked gruffly.

"Well it wasn't that hard after my partner and I put the pieces together. You have the right build, you used to take archery lessons, you're never at parties anymore, and you gave me this sketchy most definitely bullet ridden laptop. And it's most definitely not yours. Mysteries bug me. They need to be solved. By the way, that flash drive contains blueprints of the exchange building where the auction for Unidac Industries is occurring tomorrow. One in which both your stepdad and Mr. Warren Patel, the owner of this laptop, are participating in. And it seems like Patel is up to something suspicious."

"Are you going to tell anyone?" Oliver asked point blank.

"No. I think you're doing a good thing. I don't exactly agree with your methods, especially the killing, I really wish you wouldn't do that, but if I were going to turn you in for being a vigilante, I'd have to turn myself in for being a hacktivist, and I have no plans to do that anytime soon."

A small smile appeared on Oliver's face. "Felicity Smoak, you are remarkable."

"Thanks for remarking on it," she replied with a shrug and grin.

"You know it's funny," Oliver told her.

"What?" Felicity asked very confused.

"Did you even open your Secret Santa gift?"

"Uh no, I actually was more concerned with being sure if you were the Arrow based on your reactions to your gift. I think it's in my backpack though."

"Why don't you open it?"

"Uh okay then…" Felicity trailed off as she pulled the bag out of her backpack, pulled out the tissue paper, and found a sprig of mistletoe inside as well as a Bill Gates biography.

She made eye contact with Oliver, and he smiled back.

"I was your Secret Santa. It's kind of funny that we both got each other. I wanted to get you something you might enjoy and something symbolic. Felicity, ever since you and your mom moved to Starling City, I've been fascinated with you. You're smart and kind and you don't care what anyone thinks of you. And most of all, you stand up for what's right. I never realized before this year that I kind of liked you. I think I have all along, but I was too caught up in my old lifestyle and in Laurel that I never really looked at you like that.

"I've been trying to come up with a way to talk to you all year, but then I decided that I didn't want to put you in danger by associating myself with you. If my enemies ever find out who I am, my friends and family will all become targets. But, this computer stumped me, and I hoped you might be able to help. So, anyways, Merry Christmas Felicity," Oliver told her stunning Felicity into silence. He slowly started to lean towards her when Felicity interrupted him.

"I'm Jewish," she blurted out.

"Well then, Happy Hanukah," Oliver chuckled and then leaned back in.

Felicity met him half way and their lips met in a soft kiss.

"I've had dreams about this," Felicity mumbled.

"You have?" Oliver asked, smiling.

"I said that out loud didn't I?" Felicity panicked.

"Yes, but I like that you speak your mind."

"At least someone does. By the way, do you happen to have any openings for tech support in this whole Arrow venture? My partner and I have decided that you need the help, and if this laptop is any indication, you do not treat technology with the care it deserves."

"Are you sure you know what you're getting into? You know the risks?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. The members of Helix already break the law to fight for justice. We just want to join forces with you so that we can all be more effective," Felicity explained.

"And Alena is trustworthy too?"

"What? How did you know she's my partner?" Felicity asked, thrown for a loop.

"You're not the only one good at solving mysteries," he said simply.

"Well, okay then. Yes, she's trustworthy. You have to be good at keeping secrets to do what we do."

"Then I'll see you both at— "

"At the old Queen Steel Foundry in the Glades tonight at 7. We'll be there."

"I think I need to stop underestimating you Felicity Smoak."

"Like I said, mysteries need to be solved."


End file.
